Tribal Treasures

American Indian Museum: `A Story Of Cultural Survival'

September 18, 2004|By RICK GREEN; Courant Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — The National Museum of the American Indian aims pointedly at the U.S. Capitol, the message obvious: We are still here.

On Tuesday, the eve of the autumnal equinox, the museum's opening will be greeted like a triumphant treasure-loaded vessel arriving from an exotic land. Except, of course, that the people it represents have been here all along.

``Ours is a story of cultural survival,'' said W. Richard West, the museum's director,who has worked for nearly 15 years on the $219 million project. It is expected to be the final structure built on the National Mall and the closest museum to the Capitol building.

Whatever one believes about Indians, a visit here challenges thinking about what a Native American is -- or was.

When its cathedral-like atrium and four floors of exhibits open to the public, the Indian museum will headline a spectacle unusual even for Washington. As many as 15,000 natives from throughout the Western Hemisphere, including Connecticut's four federally recognized tribes, will be parading, storytelling and singing, loudly proclaiming that Indians are still very much a part of the American landscape.

``We always wanted the National Museum of the American Indian to be a native statement. We wanted people to know that they were coming to a different place,'' said West, a Southern Cheyenne Indian. ``We are determined to stay here and thrive no matter what the future might be.''

With its swirling limestone lines, the museum rises from the mall in conspicuous contrast to its stately neighbors. It stands as the most recent example of a resurgent Indian population, which now numbers about 4 million in the United States. Across the country, revenue from Indian casinos has nurtured new economic and political muscle. Tribes also have grown more sophisticated in their dealings with non-Indians.

For the first time, Indians are the only focus at a museum on the prestigious National Mall. Natives from throughout the Americas were asked to tell their stories -- without the ``helpful'' interpretation of anthropologists and scholars. Here, the arrival of Indian casino gambling takes its place alongside the noble chiefs, decades of warfare with the U.S. government and mystical tales of creation.

The result is a museum crafted from a distinctly Indian perspective, one that places Indians ahead of the exploits of European colonizers and invading armies.

``Our story had always been told by the Smithsonian and the Museum of Natural History,'' said John Guevremont, chief operating officer of the Mashantucket Pequots. ``The story of the Seventh Calvary always got better play.''

Ironic Milestone

Indians from Connecticut, where some tribes still have a bitter relationship with state government, will travel to Washington next week, lugging along their own tribal regalia to take their place in a grand procession that begins Tuesday morning on the mall.

It is an ironic milestone: A national museum recognizing Indians opens while Connecticut denies their survival.

``It's still a difficult path for us in Connecticut,'' said Roy Sebastian, ceremonial chief of the Eastern Pequots, a group that the state of Connecticut says no longer constitutes a tribe. The federal government disagrees and has recognized the North Stonington tribe formally, but the case is under appeal before the Interior Department.

The museum represents ``a growing accumulation of the desires of many native people to preserve their culture and all of their past in a prominent place so we can share that with the world,'' said Sebastian, 78, who plans to march in a procession of tribes along the mall Tuesday morning. ``It means a lot.''

Trudie Lamb Richmond, a member of the Kent-based Schaghticoke Tribal Nation -- another federally recognized tribe the state says no longer exists -- is scheduled to perform as a storyteller. Like many Indians, she is optimistic about the new museum's prospects.

``Any opportunity to make native voices more visible and more vocal is a wonderful opportunity,'' said Richmond, a director of public programs at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum.

As much as anything, the museum amply demonstrates the diversity of the Western Hemisphere's Indian population. Indians, as one wall of portraits shows, don't look or live any particular way.

They play the fiddle and speak French, at least in the Red River Valley of Manitoba. They live in cities and on desolate reservations. They hunt seals above the Arctic Circle. They preside over prosperous gambling tables in southern California.

``Most people have only a basic framework of native peoples,'' said Gerald McMaster, chief curator and a Plains Cree/Siksika Indian. ``We wanted to bring our visitors, our viewers, up to date.''

Gambling, so often intertwined with Indians in Connecticut, is a small but important part of the new museum. A few exhibits emphasize what the $16 billion Indian casino business has meant for many tribes: housing, better health care and schools.